Soldiers and Sailors Historical Society 
of Rhode Island 



E 476 
.94 
.S53 
Copy 1 



Personal Narratives 

FIFTH SERIES, No. 8 



Battle of the Crater and Experiences 
of Prison Life 



By SUMNER U. SHEARMAN 

[Late Captain, Fourth Rhode Island Volunteers] 



PERSONAL NARRATIVES 



OF EVENTS IX THE 



War of the Rebellion 

BEING PAPERS HEAD BEFORE THE 

RHODE ISLAND SOLDIERS AND SAILORS 
HISTORICAL SOCIETY. 



Fifth Series. -No. 8. 



PROVipENCE : 
PUBLISHED BY THE SOCIETY. 

1898. 



SNOW & FAHNHAM, PRINTERS. 






BATTLE OF THE CRATER 



AND 



Experiences of Prison Life. 



SUMNER U. SHEARMAN, 
[Late Captain, Fourth Rhode Island Volunteers.] 



PRO^^ipENCE : 

rUBMSHED BY THE SOCIETY , 

1898. 






[Edition limited to two hundred and fifty copies.] 



Battle of the Crater ; and Experiences 
OF Prison Life. 



I HAVE been asked by the Society under whose 
auspices we are gathered to-night to tell you some- 
thing of my personal experiences in the Battle of the 
Mine, or of the Crater, as it is sometimes called, and 
to supplement those experiences with some account of 
my life in a Southern prison. 

At the time of the battle I was captain of Company 
A, Fourth Rhode Island Volunteers Infantry. The 
regiment to which I belonged was a portion of the 
Ninth Army Corps, under the command of General 
Burnside. The batttle was fought on the 30th of 
July, 1864. But some months previous, as far back 
as January, 1863, the regiment, as also the corps, had 
been detached from the Army of the Potomac. Burn- 
side, as you know, succeeded McClellan after the bat- 
tle of Antietam in command of the Army of the 



6 BATTLE OF THE CRATER; 

Potomac ; but he himself was removed from that com- 
mand in January, 1863, and taken away from the 
Army of the Potomac. But the regiment to which I 
belonged ultimately became separated from the corps, 
and was on detached duty in the city of Norfolk, Vir- 
ginia, and afterwards at Point Lookout, Maryland, 
where we were when the order came for us to rejoin 
the Ninth Corps, which had been brought back to the 
Army of the Potomac. 

We arrived in front of Petersburg, at a point on 
the line where the Ninth Army Corps was stationed, 
on the Fourth of July, 1864. The two lines, our line 
and the enemy's, were at this point very near each 
other, from one hundred and fifty to three hundred 
yards apart, the distance varying according to the 
line of the works. We were ordered to encamp in 
some woods in the rear of our line of rifle-pits, and 
not far from them. 

Shots from the enemy were continually coming 
into our camp, being fired at the men in the breast- 
works in front. We had to erect a barricade in the 
camp to protect ourselves, behind which we lived. 
Men of course strayed more or less away from the 



AND EXPERIENCES OF PRISON LIFE. 7 

barricade, and every now and then some one would be 
wounded. Every three or four days it became our 
turn to take our places in the rifle-pits, where we had 
to stay forty-eight hours, and sometimes longer. We 
never went into the rifle-pits without some one being 
killed or wounded. 

While we were encamped in this way, we heard of 
the plan of Lieutenant-Colonel Henry Pleasants, of 
the Forty -eighth Pennsylvania Infantiy, who was a 
practical miner, and his men were largely men who 
had worked in the coal mines of Pennsylvania. He 
conceived the idea of building a mine under a certain 
portion of the enemy's works, with the purpose of 
blowing them up. At a certain point in the enemy's 
line, opposite the point where we were located, was a 
very strong earthwork, mounting several guns of large 
calibre, which did very much damage to our fortifica- 
tions and troops. It was but one hundred and fifty 
yards from our line to that point. Back of it, on 
higher ground, was a hill called Cemetery Hill, re- 
garded as a strategic point. If we could capture that 
hill, it was believed that much would be done to force 
General Lee out of Richmond. This fort stood in the 



8 BATTLE OP THE CRATER ; 

way. Colonel Pleasants believed that he could remove 
it by his plan of blowing it up. The idea was that, if 
the fort could be removed by the explosion, the enemy 
being taken by surprise, opportunity would be 
afforded for our troops, already in position, to charge 
in through the open space thus made, and, taking ad- 
vantage of the surprise on the part of the enemy, to 
push on to the crest of Cemetery Hill. 

Colonel Pleasants met with no encouragement on 
the part of General Meade, in command of the Army 
of the Potomac ; nevertheless, as General Burnside, 
his corps commander, approved of it, he was allowed 
to undertake it. No assistance whatever was afforded 
him by the Engineer Corps of the Army. He had to 
devise such methods as he could to accomplish his 
purpose, working at a great disadvantage all the time, 
but he finally accomplished the task. He began the 
work inside of our lines, under cover of a hill, at a 
point where the enemy could not perceive what was 
being done, and carried his tunnel through the earth 
the whole distance of one hundred and fifty yards, 
until he reached the fort. It was twenty feet beneath 
the surface of the ground at the point he reached. 



AND EXPERIENCES OF PRISON LIFE. 9 

From thence he made a branch at right angles on 
either side, making it in the form of a letter T, as it 
were, at that point. In these branches he placed 
large wooden tanks in which powder was to be put. 
Four tons of powder were placed in these wooden 
boxes, and connected by a fuse at the entrance of the 
mine. 

The 30th of July, 1864, was fixed upon as the time 
for the explosion to take place. It was intended to 
have it take place somewhere about three o'clock in the 
morning. Troops were gotten into position the night 
before under cover of the darkness, ready to charge 
as soon as the mine should be exploded. 

I had been engaged for some days previous at the 
headquarters of the Third Division of the Ninth 
Army Corps, General Potter commanding, as judge 
advocate in connection with a court-martial. On the 
evening before the battle, the evening of the 29th, an 
order came to me to report to my regiment. I did so, 
and found that it was about to take its place in line of 
battle, ready to join in the charge on the morning of 
the next day. I had my supper in camp as usual, and 
we started to take up our position, carrying with us 



10 BATTLE OF THE CRATER ; 

no food, nor anything in the way of clothing, except 
the clothes we had on. 

The time arrived when the explosion was expected 
to take place, but no explosion occurred. It was 
learned that the fuse had gone out. An officer of the 
Forty-eighth Pennsylvania volunteered to go in and 
relight the fuse ; and, as I remember, it went out a 
second time, and was relighted. Shortly before five 
o'clock, just as the sun was rising, a sound as of thun- 
der was distinctly heard, and in a moment the earth 
a;t the point where the mine had been constructed was 
thrown upward, slowly mounting into the air to a 
height of some tw^o hundred feet, and then, spreading 
out like a fan, fell back again into the excavation made 
by the explosion. The soil was of a clayey character, 
and enormous boulders of clay were thrown up and 
fell back around the opening, resembling in some 
respects the crater of a volcano ; hence the battle has 
sometimes been called the Battle of the Crater. The 
men who were in this fort, and the artillery, and 
everything pertaining to the fortifications, huge tim- 
bers, ammunition, tents, and everything that would 
be naturally located there, were all thrown heaven- 



AND EXPERIENCES OP PRISON LIFE. 11 

ward. The men, of course, were either killed or 
wounded, with hardly an exception. A large number 
of men were in the fort. It has been estimated by 
some that there were a thousand. 

As soon as the explosion took place, the artillery 
all along the line on our side, some one hundred and 
twenty pieces or more, began firing at that point. 
The firing lasted some moments, and then the troops 
were directed to charge. It had been the plan of 
General Burnside to have his division of colored troops 
lead the advance. There was in the Ninth Corps at 
that time a division of colored troops. They had been 
drilled with the idea of taking the advance, but Gen- 
eral Meade overruled Burnside's plan, and thought it 
best that the colored troops should not be put in that 
position. So General Burnside called together his 
division commanders, and told them of the change 
of plan on the very night before the battle, and 
allowed them to draw lots to see which one should 
take the lead. The lot fell to General Ledlie, the 
least efficient of the division commanders in the Ninth 
Corps. 

When the Third Division, to which my regiment 



12 BATTLE OF THE CRATER ; 

belonged, charged over our breastworks and across 
the space between our line and the enemy's line, they 
came upon the enemy's works to the right of the cra- 
ter ; but by that time the enemy had recovered from 
his surprise, and was concentrating a terrible fire upon 
all that region. The men instinctively sought shelter 
in the excavation made by the explosion, but when 
we arrived at that point we found the crater filled 
with troops of General Ledlie's division. There 
seemed to be complete chaos reigning there. The 
lieutenant-colonel of our regiment, who was in com- 
mand, Colonel Buffum, tried to rail}' the men, as did 
officers of other regiments, and to push on to Ceme- 
tery Hill ; but General Ledlie, who should have been 
with his command, remained behind in a bomb-proof. 
I remember seeing him, as we passed the front, secure 
in a bomb-proof. His tropps had fallen into confusion 
in the way I have explained, and he was not there to 
remedy the situation. It seemed impossible for the 
officers to accomplish anything in the midst of the 
reigning confusion. 

The Fourth Rhode Island, the few of us that were 
together at that time, followed the colonel and the 



AND EXPERIENCES OF PRISON LIFE. 13 

color bearer out beyond the enemy's works towards 
Cemetery Hill, but we encountered such a hurricane 
of shot and shell that it was impossible to face it, and 
we were driven back again into the shelter of the ene- 
my's works, where we remained. The attempt to cap- 
ture Cemetery Hill had proved a failure. Many of 
the men and officers tried to get back to our own line, 
but the enemy by that time had a raking fire over the 
space^ between their line and our own, and it was 
almost sure death for any person to undertake to 
cross it. Very few of those who did, escaped being 
killed or wounded. The space between was so cov- 
ered with the dead and the wounded that it was pos- 
sible for a person to go from one line to the other 
without stepping on the earth. I have learned since 
that an order was issued for the troops in the crater 
to return to our own lines, but I myself did not hear 
of such an order, neither did Lieutenant-Colonel Buf- 
fum. We remained in the crater. It was on the 30th 
of July, as I have said, and one of the hottest days of 
the summer. The enemy had gotten range upon the 
crater, and were di-opping mortar shell into our midst, 
but we held them at bay until our ammunition gave 



14 BATTLE OF THE CRATEK ; 

out. Finally they made a charge, and succeeded in 
reaching the crater, and were firing directly down 
upon us. General Bartlett, the highest officer in rank 
in the crater, a general from Massachusetts, gave the 
order for us to surrender. An officer of my regiment, 
a lieutenant of the Fourth Rhode Island, Lieutenant 
Kibby, tied a white handkerchief on his sword, and 
held it up in token of surrender. The enemy ceased 
firing. 

I may mention that General Bartlett in a previous 
battle had lost a leg, and it had been replaced by a 
wooden one. A shot struck him and his leg was 
broken, but it proved to be the wooden leg. 

During all this time we had no water to drink, and 
we were parched with thirst. I had the feeling at 
the time that if I had a thousand dollars I would give 
it cheerfully for a drink of water. The sun beating 
down upon us as it did, exposed as we were, and hav- 
ing neither water to driuk nor food to eat, I became 
very much prostrated. I have always believed that I 
came very near having sunstroke, from the aftereffects 
upon me. 

When we surrendered, I, in common with others. 



AND EXPERIENCES OF PRISON LIFE. 15 

began clambering out of the excavation, up over the 
boulders of clay to firm ground, and as I reached the 
surface, a Confederate soldier confronted me, saying, 
" Give me that sword, you damn Yankee ! " I of 
course immediately surrendered my sword, giving him 
sword and belt and pistol. I was walking with the 
colonel to the rear, under the escort of Confederate 
soldiers, when another soldier, without any ceremony, 
took my colonel's hat off his head, and put a much 
worse one in its place. The colonel wore a felt hat, 
and they seemed to be desirous of hats of that de- 
scription. I had on an infantry cap, and my head was 
not disturbed. We had gone but a few paces when 
another Confederate soldier took off the hat that the 
colonel now had, and put on a still worse one. It 
seemed very strange to me to see my colonel treated 
with such disrespect, but he endured it without 
protest. 

I felt very weak, and I suppose was not able to walk 
with my usual steadiness, for I heard one Confederate 
soldier say to another, pointing to me, " I wish I had 
the whiskey in me that he has." If I only could have 
had a little at that time, I think it would have been 
good for me. 



16 BATTLE OF THE CKATEK ; 

We were taken to the rear of the enemy's line to a 
field just outside of Petersburg, where we were placed 
under a Confederate guard, and remained there all 
that afternoon and all night. It was about two 
o'clock in the afternoon when we surrendered. A 
mounted officer rode up during the afternoon to take 
a view of us, who I was told was General Lee. If it 
was, it was the only time I ever saw that famous 
officer. 

As I have said, I was completely prostrated, and lay 
upon the ground, with no desire and scarcely the 
strength to get up. A fellow-officer brought me some 
water, which I drank, and bathed my head and fore- 
head and breast, in order to restore me, if possible, 
from the fainting condition I was in. As the sun went 
down and the night came on, it became cooler, and 
I began to revive and feel renewed vigor. The 
Confederates gave us nothing to eat. An apple 
was given me by some one, and that was the 
only food I had that day. The next day was 
Sunday. In the morning the Confederates took the 
officers and the negroes who had been captured in 
battle and arranged us in an order like this : four 



AND EXPERIENCES OF PRISON LIFE. 17 

officers, four negroes, four officei-s, four negroes, 
and so on, until all the officers and negroes were 
formed into a line of that character. Then they 
marched us all over the town of Petersburg, through 
the streets, to show us up to the inhabitants. The 
idea they had in view, I suppose, was to humiliate 
the officers. We passed one house, in the doorway of 
which stood a white woman, with a colored woman on 
either side of her, and as we passed I heard her say, 
" That is the way to treat the Yankees ; mix them up 
with the niggers, thej' are so fond of them, mix them 
up." I thought to myself that she was very much in 
the same position that we were. Another woman 
whom we passed, called out, saying that if she had 
her way she would put all those Yanl^ in front of a 
battery and mow them all down. 

A man said to me as we marched along, " They are 
going to take you down to Andersonville. They are 
dying down there three or four hundred a day ; you 
will never live to see home again." I thought to my- 
self that his welcome was not, to say the least, hospita- 
ble. The guard who was marching along by my side 
said to me that he did not believe in insulting a pris- 



18 BATTLE OF THE CRATER ; 

oner ; that he had made up his mind never to insult 
a prisoner, because he had the feeling that he might 
some time be in the same position. 

We were taken to an island in the river Appomat- 
tox, the officers at last being separated from the col- 
ored men. About eight o'clock Sunday evening 
eight hard crackers and a small piece of uncooked 
bacon were given to each of us. I had had no food 
except the apple that I spoke of, since the Friday 
night previous in camp ; I went from Friday night to 
Sunday night without anything to eat. I ate part of 
the crackers and the bacon, thinking that I would 
make them go as far as possible, not knowing when I 
might receive any more. It was dark when they gave 
us the crackers and the bacon, and in the morning I 
discovered that the bacon was alive with maggots and 
that I had been eating it. I scraped off the maggots, 
and ate the rest of it. 

On Monday morning they put us aboard box 
freight-cars. There were no seats in the cars, and we 

O 

were packed in like so many cattle, and started on our 
journey to Danville, Virginia. Arriving there, we were 
imprisoned in a tobacco warehouse, where we remained 



AND EXPERIENCES OF PRISON LIFE. 19 

two or three days. This warehouse the Confederate 
government had improvised as a place in which to 
incarcerate prisoners of war, and a very large number 
of men were confined here. We saw some most re- 
volting sights, men reduced to skeletons and so weak 
that they could scarcely crawl about. Here we were 
given boiled bacon and hard crackers for our food. 

The enlisted men remained here, but the commis- 
sioned officers were taken on board freight cars again, 
and carried in the same way as before to Columbia, 
South Carolina. It was a very tedious and trying 
journey. It was insufferably hot, and very litle food 
was supplied us. We arrived at Columbia after dark 
in the evening, and marched directly to the county 
jail, situated in the city of Columbia. 

We were placed in rooms in the jail. The one in 
which I was had nothing in the way of furniture in 
it. We simply lay down upon the floor just as we had 
come from the freight cars. The next day we were 
distributed around in the rooms on the floor above 
that on which we were first placed. 

The jail stood on one of the principal streets of the 
city, close to the sidewalk and adjacent to what I took 



20 BATTLE OF THE CRATER; 

to be the city hall. In the rear of the jail was a yard, 
surrounded by a high fence and containing out-houses. 
It was a small yard. In it was a small brick building 
containing a cook-stove. A pipe from a spring led 
into the yard, with a faucet from which we drew 
water, which was of very excellent quality. 

The room in which I was placed I should think was 
in the neighborhood of twenty feet square. There 
were, as I remember, seventeen of us in that room. 
There were seven similar rooms, four on one side and 
three on the other side of a hall running the length of 
the building. The side of the room towards the outer 
wall consisted of an iron grating. Between that 
grating and the outer wall was an alley- way perhaps 
three feet in width. There were windows in this 
outer wall, which were also covered with gratings. 
The room contained nothing whatever in the way of 
chairs or beds or anything for our comfort. It was 
absolutely empty of everything, except lice and bed- 
bugs, until we entered it. All along on the angle 
made by the walls and ceiling were rows of bedbugs, 
and at night they came down upon us. 

Having been divided in these rooms, we organized 



AND EXPERIENCES OF PRISON LIFE. 



21 



ourselves into messes, there being a mess in each room. 
Each mess detailed men from its number to do the 
cooldng. We appointed the highest officer of our 
number in the prison, Colonel Marshall, as provost 
marshal. He appointed a lieutenant as adjutant, who 
kept a roster and detailed two men every day in each 
of the rooms to do pohce duty. Their duty was to 
sweep the floor, and to scrub it when necessity re- 
quired. No broom was supplied us. We therefore 
had to purchase one. The men in the room in which 
1 was, clubbed together and bought a broom, of very 
inferior quality, for which we paid five dollars in Con- 
federate money. There was a tub belonging to the 
room, very roughly made, in which we brought up 
water from the yard below whenever we found it 
necessary to wash the floor. We would dash the 
water over the floor, and then scrub it with the broom. 
We were allowed out in the prison yard each day, at 
daylight in the morning for an hour, and again in the 
afternoon for an hour. During the morning hour we 
all gathered around the one faucet in the yard, to per- 
form our morning ablutions. There were some one 
hundred and twenty of us, as I remember, and of 



22 BATTLE OF THE CRATER; 

course we could not all engage in this process at the 
same time. 

The cooks were allowed to go into the brick house 
of which I have spoken, long before daylight, where 
they built a fire with wood supplied by the Confede- 
rate government, and proceeded to fill a wash-boiler 
connected with the cook-stove, with water, which they 
heated and stirred in the corn meal supplied us as the 
chief article of our diet. This they afterwards baked 
in two dripping pans, these being the only cooking 
utensils which the building contained. After they 
had finished baking this corn-bread, they divided it 
into pieces about as large as one's hand and perhaps 
an inch or two thick, and spread it out on boards, 
which they brought up into the prison about eight or 
nine o'clock in the morning. A piece of this bread 
and a tin cup full of cold water constituted our 
breakfast. 

When I entered the prison I had nothing with me 
but the clothes I had on, and a tooth brush and a 
small pocket comb. At the time I was taken prisoner 
I had some twenty or twenty-five dollars in green- 
backs, and this I exchanged for Confederate money. 



AND EXPERIENCES OF PRISON LIFE. 23 

through one of the guard placed over us, receiving, as 
I remember, some fifteen or twenty dollars for each 
dollar of the currency of the United States. With 
this money I bought me a pint tin cup, paying five 
dollai-s for it, Confederate money. A naval officer 
who had been captured at Fort Sumter a year pre- 
vious to our imprisonment, and who was also in this 
prison, gave me a small caseknife and a fork made of 
the handle of a toothbrush, A fellow prisoner who 
was ingenious with the jackknife, carved a tablespoon 
out of a piece of wood, of which he made me a pres- 
ent. These articles constituted my kit. 

The ration supplied us consisted of cornmeal, rice, 
and sorghum. The rations were issued to last ten 
days. They amounted to about a pint of meal a day, 
a tenth of a pint of rice, and a gill of sorghum. The 
cornmeal was sometimes good, sometimes it was 
wormy, sometimes it consisted of the corn and the 
cob ground up together. The meal was cooked in 
the way I have described, and twice a day we had a 
piece of the size I have mentioned. Sometimes we 
would save our rice and sorghum, and have what we 
considered a feast. At other times we would sell the 



24 BATTLE OF THE CKATEll ; 

sorghum, through the guard, to somebody outside the 
prison, iu exchange for cow-peas, and out of these 
peas a soup would be made. Of course, it consisted 
of nothing but the peas boiled in water. We had no 
meat and no salt. When such an exchange was 
made, we had the luxury of a pint of this soup. 

As I have said, I had no change of clothing, so 
when I indulged in the luxury of washing day, I had 
to go without underclothing until my clothes were 
dry. Of course, each man had to wash his own 
clothes. 

Every now and then it came my turn to wash the 
floor, and clean up the room as best I could. Retir- 
ing at night, consisted in sweeping the floor. We went 
to bed, of course, upon the floor, wearing the clothes 
that we had worn during the day. I was fortunate 
enough to procure a log of wood out in the jail-yard, 
which I utilized as a pillow, folding up my coat and 
placing it on top of the wood to make my ])illow more 
comfortable. 

Of course time hung heavy on our hands. We 
therefore tried to while it away by engaging in games 
of various kinds. We clubbed together and bought 



AXD EXPERIENCES OF PRISON LIFE. 20 

a pack of cards, paying fifteen dollars for tliem, and 
they were very poor cards at that. Some one of our 
number made a checker and chess-board out of a 
square piece of plank, and whittled out rough check- 
ers and chessmen. We used to tell stories, and in- 
dulged largely in telling what we would like to have 
to eat, and what we would have if we ever got out 
of that place. I often dreamed at night of having 
magnificent banquets, and that seemed to be the case 
with my fellow-prisoners, for we frequently told each 
other in the morning of the splendid repasts we had 
had in our dreams. The naval officers of whom I have 
spoken, some fourteen in number, having been there 
for a year, and having received their pay in gold reg- 
ularly, by an arrangement made with the Confederate 
government on the part of Admiral Dahlgren, had 
been able to purchase a good many things. They had 
supplied themselves with a number of books. They 
had Sir Walter Scott's novels, they had Don Quixote 
and Gil Bias. The two latter I borrowed of them, 
and read them in the prison with great interest. Some 
of the men in the room in which I was having learned 
that I knew something of Latin, asked me if I would 



26 BATTLE OF THE CKATER ; 

not undertake to teach them Latin, so I obtained from 
these naval officers a Latin grammar and a Latin 
Prose Composition, and established a class in Latin. 
So in oneway and another we managed to get through 
each day. 

A portion of each day was occupied by each one of 
us in a critical examination of our underclothing, in 
order to make sure that we destroyed the crop of 
vermin which we found there each day. They were 
not the kind that are found in the heads of school 
children, but seemed to infest woolen clothing, and, 
as we all wore woolen clothings we were greatly an- 
noyed by them. This process we called "skirmisli- 
ing," and it was one of our daily duties. 

There were guards around the prison in the jail- 
yard and on the street below at each side of the 
prison. At the front of the prison there was a large 
window, which we were ordered not to approach after 
six o'clock at night. The guard had instructions to 
fire at any prisoner who might show liimself at the 
window. We not infrequently tantalized the guard 
by going near enough to be seen by him, and dodging 
back just as he fired. 



AND EXPERIENCES OF PRISON LIFE. 27 

We were allowed out in the jail-yard, as I have 
said, early in the morning. A Confederate corporal 
would unlock the door, and shout out, " Yanks all 
out !" Of course, we were counted as we went out, 
and when we returned we were all drawn up in line 
and counted again, to make sure that all that went out 
had returned. 

The captain in charge of the jail seemed to be a 
very excellent man. He was an elderly man, too old 
for active service in the field, and the men under him 
were either old men or boys, some of them hardly 
old enough to carry a musket. This showed to us, as 
we thought, that nearly all their available men were 
at the front. The guard was frequently changed ; 
that is to say, the men who served for a few days 
would disappear and an entirely new set take their 
places. They wore no uniform, and we therefore con- 
cluded that the}' were rustics and others in the 
neighborhood, temporarily serving as guards over the 
prisoners. 

One day while I was Avaiting for the officer to let us 
return into the prison, we having been allowed out in 
the yard, I was walking back and forth in the lower 



28 BATTLE OF THE CRATEll ; 

hall. While doing so three young girls came up to 
the sentinel on duty at the front of the building and 
spoke to him. They were evidently of the class 
known in the South as "poor white trash," who had 
come from the country. I heard them say to the 
guard that they would like to see a Yankee. He im- 
mediately pointed to jne and said, " There's one." 
They replied, looking critically at me, " Why, I don't 
see but what he looks just like other men." What 
they expected to see I am sure I cannot tell, some 
monstrous being or other, I presume, for there had 
been most surprising stories told at the beginning 
of the war, among the ignorant white and colored 
people, of the horrible appearance of the Yankees. It 
was declared that they had horns on their heads, and 
altogether presented a very devilish aspect. 

We used to talk more or less of the possibility of 
escape. We could easily have gotten away from the 
prison, because of the inferior quality of the guard. 
Whenever we were allowed outside, we could have 
made a rush, and thus gotten away from them. Some 
of us, of course, would probably have been killed or 
wounded, but a majority could have escaped from the 



AND EXPERIENCES OF PRISON LIFE. 29 

prison itself. The difficulty was to get to our own 
lines, the nearest place being the seacoast at Charles- 
ton, S. C. This long distance had to be traversed, 
travelling by night and hiding by day. The Confed- 
erates were accustomed to hunt prisoners with blood- 
hounds, so the chances of ultimate escape were very 
small. 

Two of our number, however, determined to take 
those chances at the first opportunity. So one night, 
when a severe storm was raging, the wind blowing, 
and the rain pouring down, they tied some blankets 
together as a rope by which they could be let down 
to the street. Here I may say that some of the pris- 
oners happened to have blankets with them when they 
were captured, though I myself was not one of the 
fortunate ones. We had discovered that the sentry 
on duty when the nights were stormy, was in the 
habit of retiring within the porch over the front door 
of the prison ; therefore these two men thought if they 
could reach the ground while the sentry was within 
the porch, they might possibly make their escape un- 
der cover of the darkness. 

The plan proved successful. We let them down 



30 BATTLE OF THE CRATER ; 

from the window, and saw and heard no more of 
them. Whether they were recaptured or not I did 
not know for years afterwards. They were not 
brought back to the prison, and I have since learned 
that they succeeded in getting away. In order to de- 
ceive the officer who called us out in the morning, we 
placed two dummies on the floor in place of the men 
who had escaped during the previous night. This 
ruse deceived the prison officials, so the men had a 
longer opportunity of making their escape ; but it was 
discovered at night when the roll-call was made that 
there were two men lacking, and, of course, I sup- 
pose the two escaj)ed prisoners were at once pursued. 
The windows in the prison were sadly lacking in 
glass, many panes having been broken out. Glass 
was almost an unknown quantity in the Southern 
Confederacy at that time, as they manufactured none 
themselves, and the blockade was so stringent that 
they could import but little. The consequence was, 
when winter weather came on, that the prisoners suf- 
fered from cold. The captain of the jail fitted up the 
vacant spaces with boards, and so many panes had to 
be supplied in this way that it seriously darkened the 



AND EXPERIENCES OF PRISON LIFE. 31 

prison. He also placed a stove in the centre of the 
hall which I have spoken of as running the whole 
length of the prison. It was \evj insufficient in its 
capacity to heat the prison, nevertheless it was better 
than nothing. Of course the fuel supplied us was 
wood. 

An old colored woman was allowed to come into 
the prison whenever she chose, to sell what the south- 
ern people call "snacks," to such as were fortunate 
enough to have money to buy them. The lunches 
consisted mainly of baked sweet potatoes and flour- 
bread or biscuit. A New Hampshire officer had quite 
a little sum of money when he was taken prisoner, and 
this he had husbanded to the best of his ability, and 
had some of it left when the cold became quite severe. 
Through the old colored woman, by paying her lib- 
erally for it, he obtained an old carpet that had seen 
its best days. It was quite ragged and torn. This, 
those who slept on my side of the room placed over 
them, and thus had some little protection from the 
cold weather. We used to sleep spoon-fashion under 
this carpet, and of course we all had to turn over at 
the same time to keep the carpet over us. We ap- 



32 BATTLE OP THE CRATER; 

pointed one of our number to give the word of com- 
mand whenever he was disposed to have us turn. 

Thus we lived week in and week out, until nearly 
six months had gone by. One day, when I was en- 
gaged in teaching my class in Latin, I heard shouts 
from some of my fellow-prisoners, calling, " Shear- 
man ! Shearman ! You are wanted ! " Making my 
way toward the direction of the shouts, I found that 
a Confederate corporal was at the prison door, who in- 
formed me that he had good news for me. He took 
me down stairs, and there I found a Confederate 
major, who told me the joyful news that I was to be 
exchanged next morning. I could scarcely believe 
what he said to be true, for I, in common with the 
other prisoners, thought we should be compelled to 
remain there until the end of the war, and when that 
might be we did not know. 

1 might say here that we were allowed to write let- 
ters home, but they were limited to one side of a half 
sheet of note paper. The paper and envelopes were 
of the poorest quality imaginable, and cost an exor- 
bitant price, reckoned in Confederate money. These 
letters had to be read by the captain in charge of the 



AND EXPERIENCES OF PRISON LIFE. 33 

prison, and forwarded by liim to their destination. In 
my letters I almost always asked my father to do what 
he could to get me exchanged, but I had no hope that 
he would be successful. It seems, however, that the 
two governments had made an arrangement to ex- 
change ten thousand sick men. The exchange was to 
have taken place at Savannah, and five thousand were 
exchanged at that point, when General Sherman ar- 
rived at Savannah, which compelled a transfer in the 
place of exchange. The remainder were exchanged 
at Charleston, South Carolina. Through the influ- 
ence of General Burnside, a friend of my father's, my 
name was included in the list of those to be ex- 
changed, although I was not sick. All this I learned 
after reaching home. 

After my interview with the Confederate major, I 
was taken up stairs again into my portion of the 
prison, and told my fellow-prisoners of my good luck. 
There were six others to whom the same glorious 
news was imparted. Of course it was the topic of 
conversation from that time on during the rest of the 
day and evening. Many of the prisoners took advan- 
tage of the opportunity to send letters home by us, 



34 BATTLE OF THE CRATER; 

and wrote much longer communications than were 
allowed, we agreeing to secrete them about our per- 
sons, and carry them away surreptitiously. They 
could thus write many things about themselves and 
their condition that would not pass muster, going 
through the captain's hands. 

I did not sleep a wink that night. The excitement 
of the news which I had received would not permit 
me to close my eyes. I might say here, speaking of 
sitting up nearly all night, that we had no lights in 
the prison, and when night came on, we had to sit in 
the darkness until we were ready to lie down \ipon 
the floor. Occasionally we would indulge in the lux- 
ury of a tallow candle of the poorest quality, for which 
we paid a dollar in Confederate money. Sometimes 
a pine knot would be found among the wood which 
the cooks used. This we would take up into the jail 
and light in the evening. Of course it afforded light, 
but it also filled the room with clouds of smoke which 
escaped through the broken windows. Next morn- 
ing our faces would be covered with soot. 

To come back to the matter of my exchange, on 
the afternoon of the next day I was duly liberated, 



AND EXPERIENCES OF PRISON LIFE. 35 

with my six companions, and marched to a freight 
train. I remember that it was a cold day for that re- 
gion, and that snow was falling. It was the only 
snow, as I recollect, that we had during the time I 
was a prisoner. The train of cars soon started on its 
way to Charleston, S. C. A large number of prisoners 
were gathered at various points, coming from Ander- 
sonville and Florence. We reached Charleston early 
the next morning, and were marched across the city 
to the wharves. 

Charleston was completely abandoned by its inhab- 
itants because of the siege on the part of our forces, 
and it was the most desolate looking place I have ever 
seen in all my life. The damages inflicted by shot 
and shell were to be seen on every hand. The grass 
had actually grown in the streets of Charleston, 
although at the time we were passing through, a light 
snow was on the ground, adding to the desolation of 
the scene. General Toombs of Georgia had threat- 
ened before the war began that the South would 
make grass grow in the streets of Boston, and that he 
would call the roll of his slaves on Bunker Hill. 
Grass actually did grow in the streets of Charleston 
as a result of the war. 



36 BATTLE OF THE CRATEK ; 

Arriving at the wliarves, we were placed on board 
of a steam vessel, which proved to be a blockade iim- 
ner, and were carried out to a fleet of vessels under 
the walls of Fort Sumter, which our goverimient had 
provided for the transport of prisoners. I was placed 
on board a ship called the Lfnited States, with a num- 
ber of my fellow-prisoners. Those of us who were 
officers were assigned by the captain of the ship to 
staterooms. We found that there were nine hundred 
prisoners on board from Anderson ville and Florence, 
^ome of them in the last stages of emaciation. Two 
or three of them died on the voyage from Charleston 
to Annapolis, and their bodies were buried in the sea. 
The Sanitary Commission had an agent on board, 
with an ample supply of underclothing. I at once 
got rid of the clothing which I had worn so long in the 
prison, throwing it overboard, and accepted Avith 
alacrity the new and clean clothing given me by the 
agent of the Sanitary Commission. 

We lay at anchor one night in Charleston harbor, 
and the next day sailed for Annapolis, Md. Arriving 
at that point, we found each prisoner had been granted 
a thirty days' leave of absence. I telegraphed my 



AND EXPERIENCES OF PRISON LIFE. 37 

father of my arrival at Annapolis, and found, on 
reaching home, that he could hardly bring himself to 
believe it. 

We went from Annapolis to Washington to obtain 
our pay, which had been accumulating during the 
period of our imprisonment. I purchased new cloth- 
ing, and then joyfully started for home. I had served 
nearly three years, and my regiment had been mus- 
tered out of service during the period of my imprison- 
ment, its time having expired. Some of its members 
had re-enlisted, and were consolidated with the Sev- 
enth Rhode Island ; but I felt that I had done my 
duty, and that I was entitled to withdraw from the 
service, so I sent in my resignation direct to the Sec- 
retary of War at Washington, accompanpng it with 
a surgeon's certificate of my health, and setting forth 
the facts of my service and my imprisonment. I ob- 
tained the endorsement of the Governor of the State 
to my application, and it came back in a few days ac- 
cepted, and I was out of the service. I have often 
felt that I would have been tempted to return had I 
known that the war would end as soon as it subse- 



38 BATTLE OF THE CKATEK. 

quently did, so as to have had the satisfaction of 
being in at the close, if possible. 

I have never regretted my being in the army during 
that most trying and critical period of our country. I 
feel as did the Westerner who said that he would not 
part with his experiences for a hundred thousand dol- 
lars, and he would not go through with it again for a 
hundred million. 



CONGRESS 




